Miss HairOfTheDog.
Thank you!
The entire Constitution, with amendments, is shorter than this. The LOTR Trilogy is barely longer....
Sounds just like my ex.
I had a teacher lead an "encounter" group like this in high school. It was a disaster. Because frankly, as long as everyone has plausible deniability, we can all get along.
As soon as Susie whimpers and demands publically to know why Katie said mean things about her, Katie can't deny it and Katie and Susie will be enemies forever.
I doubt it can be fixed in any real way. The best thing to do is raise your girls to have enough confidence to do the right thing regardless of popularity. And repeat after me, "It's ONLY high school." That got me through all 4 years.
It did cause me to recall one very telling incident in the fourth grade. At least when I was that age (in the 60s), boys still found girls kinda useless because they couldn't run or throw a ball well and just caused trouble. But, even then, the stories started to circulate.
In my class, there were two girls, Ellen and Cindy who were the only ones who could make better test scores than I could. Ellen was short and a little cute and a little funny. Cindy was tall, had glasses and was rather serious. Cindy and Ellen were best friends. I had no feelings whatsoever for either of them, nor for any other girls. I appreciated that they challenged me to keep up my grades but that's as far as it went.
I was at a birthday party which broke up and the boys stayed around to talk. Suddenly, boys started bragging about having "girlfriends". So I got asked the question.
"Do YOU have a girlfriend?"
"No," I replied, never having had to face the question before.
"You mean there's no girl you're in love with?"
"No." I was beginning to feel the peer pressure of being outside the norm.
"Surely, there's SOME girl?"
"No", I murmured.
"Well, is there any girl that you LIKE?", my inquisitor persisted.
I hestiated. "Well, I kinda like Ellen."
This immediately took the pressure off. Satisfied they had a name, they moved on to some other poor kid. I felt relieved that I wasn't being asked any more personal questions.
The next day in Mrs. Hestilow's class, we were supposed to be reading quietly when Ellen suddenly shrieked and began crying openly. Startled, Mrs. Hestilow tried to find out what had caused such an outburst. Ellen wouldn't say.
The teacher came over to her desk but Ellen wailed all the more and refused to say what was upsetting her. Finally, Mrs. Hestilow demanded that Ellen see her at the teacher's desk so she could find out what was the matter. By now, all eyes were on her. She was crying so much you;d have thought someone had just shot her dog.
When Ellen got half way to teacher's desk she stopped in her tracks and wouldn't walk any further. This irritated the teacher and she insisted.
"What is the matter with you?? Why are you crying??"
Through her tears Ellen shrieked, "(Tall_Texan)'s in LOVE with me!!!" She seemed unconsolable.
I stood up like a councilman trying to make a point of order. "I didn't say I LOVED her. I only said I LIKED her."
This led to more loud crying. Now I was believing my attempt at clarification only made matters worse. If there was a hole in the classroom that I could fall into, I surely would have.
Only I never understood until it was too late that I was being set up to get at something for someone. I seemed like the guilty party when I was only trying to be honest.
Little did I know so young in life that this would establish a pattern for later years when I really did want to tell a girl I loved her. They always cry. And I still feel like jumping into the nearest hole in the ground right after I say it.
You got further than I did. I started scrolling down to see how long the article is. It just kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling...